A year of writing a little bit of everything. Writers Write, Right?

library love

My children, all of them, from the moment we arrived in this place, have taken full advantage of the fact that we no longer live miles from everything. They are at the pool, the grocery store, the park, any number of places, sometimes all on the same day.

Our new library has held special intrigue for them in the fact that the programs offered are ones in which they have never before participated. Almost once a week they will come home from the library brimming with excitement about something other than books. Truthfully, Oldest Middle really only reads when it is forced upon her. If she had carte blanche to create her own recipes, she would never even open a cookbook. But, still, she is thrilled just setting foot in the doors of our library. (The cake pans that she can borrow from there may have something to do with that.)

Earlier this summer the librarians hosted a teddy bear sleep over, and while Youngest Middle couldn’t bear (no pun intended) to have her most beloved puppy out of her sight for the evening, we found a suitable replacement. She went to the library, listened to stories and then tucked her animal in for the night. In the morning, she picked up her buddy and a letter, personally written, telling all about what fun the stuffed friends had while the children were gone.

A couple weeks ago the big girls came home with a fitness incentive program brochure. It had a map of the town marking all of the local parks. They were to visit and take pictures of themselves at 5 local parks and for doing so they would receive a fabulous prize. They were gone ALL AFTERNOON in ninety plus degree weather. (I’ll make certain I leave that information off of my application for mother of the year.) They followed an accompanying map around town and only came home when their water bottles were empty, the towels on their heads were dry, and their faces looked like mine used to at the end of a cross country race.

At the end of the day they came home with four out of five parks found, but not for a lack of trying. So I hopped in the car with them and found their last park. (It turns out that they were in the right area, but this particular park is camouflaged as someone’s front yard.) At which point we headed to the library for their prize. They were thrilled.

Gotta love eight and ten year olds.

Gotta love librarians who can challenge eight and ten year olds to do any manner of crazy things all in the name of granola bars and Gatorage.

2 thoughts on “library love”

Sounds like you live near a fabulous library! Checking out cake pans and teddy bear sleepovers? I love those ideas! We live between two great libraries, and frequent several others, but I think those are two things I haven’t seen or heard of.